CMS: great idea, easy to understand, tough to do.

Content management systems: short-lived satisfaction

A Forrester Research report suggests the content management community is right to complain about today's off-the-shelf software. Forrester's blunt view: current content management systems are "immature".

As Internet technology advances, new things become suddenly possible. Take content management. Just five years ago, it was almost impossible to waste a million dollars building a Web site. But modern, twenty-first century Internet technology means that any medium-sized organisation with Web ambitions can now pour a seven-digit sum of money straight down the hole almost instantly.

And one of the easiest and most efficient ways to do this is to buy the wrong Web content management system, or CMS.